You may know this classic fairy tale as Sleeping Beauty. Charles Perrault, unsurprisingly, wrote the French version of this tale. The first recorded variation is found in the collection of poems Perceforest, which was written between 1330 and 1344.
The French and Italian versions of Sleeping Beauty tell the tale in two parts. Both stories were individual fairy tales, but Perrault and Giambattista Basile combined them together. The Brothers Grimm kept the two stories separate: part 1 is the Briar Rose story, part 2 is titled The Evil Mother-in-Law. In the later published versions the Grimms put out, they remove The Evil Mother-in-Law for being too French. They almost removed Briar Rose, but a German folk tale had a sleeping maiden and so they were inspired to keep it.
In Perrault’s version, there are seven fairies invited to the princess’s christening, but the king only had six golden plates. The seventh fairy is given fine china and a crystal glass. Everyone thought the seventh fairy was dead, as she had been in a tower for so long and forgotten. After the princess is awakened the first part ends and the second part details how the princess bears two children. The prince’s mother is part ogre. She takes the princess and children to a house and plans to have the children and princess killed and served as a meal. They are saved by the cook, and the ogre queen is thrown into a tub of poisonous creatures.
The Italian version, collected by Basile, is the darkest version of Sleeping Beauty I’ve read. It is titled Sun, Moon, and Talia. This version includes the rape of the sleeping maiden, infidelity by the prince, and attempted cannibalism by the prince’s wife. I wonder why Disney didn’t want to adapt this version for their movie?
The Narrator’s Favorites Variations:
Sleeping Beauty--Ballet Sleeping Beauty (Disney)--Movie Beauty Sleep, by Cameron Dokey--Book Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep, by Gail Carson Levine--Book